PeakRN

PeakRN

Adult and pediatric emergency and critical care

Member

  • Content

    547

  • Visitors

    7,568

  • Followers

    1

  • Likes

    400

All Content by PeakRN

  1. Trauma level III

    PeakRN replied to braids's topic in Emergency

    Trauma level doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of medicine that EDs provide. Isolated trauma centers may see large volumes despite potentially being a lower acuity center than an urban market...

  2. Cardioversion without ECG leads

    PeakRN replied to miamiheatrn's topic in Emergency

    Current zoll, Phillip's, and life pack monitors do not require 3 lead cables in order to sync. We have a pair of paddles for one of our Phillip's MRXs (we don't use the and I'm not sure who bought...

  3. Ears

    PeakRN replied to Cat365's topic in Emergency

    We irrigate, it is typically performed by nursing staff. We sometime will use liquid colace to help soften the wax before irrigation. As others have suggested we typically just cut off an inch or so...

  4. LPN or EMS triage

    PeakRN replied to canoehead's topic in Emergency

    Fortunately I've never worked in an area where we have used LPNs or EMS staff to perform triage. Triage should be performed by someone who really can understand the whole picture, because you're...

  5. Sepsis: Question clarifying disease process

    PeakRN replied to pedi_nurse's topic in PICU, Pediatric

    You can have a cytokine storm without sepsis, although typically as a response to certain biologics. Certainly in light of active infection this seems unlikely, but not impossible especially in a...

  6. Asthmatic emergency

    PeakRN replied to nicole.schoolRN's topic in School

    What you're describing doesn't really sound like a "severe" asthma attack, but that isn't really the point. If you feel that there is an emergency that you cannot safely control you should be calling...

  7. PA catheter and parameters

    PeakRN replied to hyhero89's topic in Critical Care

    I just recently took the adult CCRN, and there were plenty of questions on PA caths. Even if we aren't using PA caths it is still important to understand the

  8. Is Progressive care unit considered critical care?

    PeakRN replied to chudo161's topic in Critical Care

    The CCRN exam is really written for the care of critically ill patients. It will be very difficult to pass the exam without that experience. I took the adult CCRN exam with only pre hospital and ED...

  9. Remember pagers?

    PeakRN replied to Davey Do's topic in General Nursing

    Even though we have hospital issues smart phones we still have a hospital ED charge pagers (as well as charge for many other units), and most of our call services still have pagers. My former level I...

  10. legal nursing orders in the USA

    PeakRN replied to lesipsem's topic in General Nursing

    This will vary from state to state in the USA. In my state we have medical holds which are placed by an acute cognitive change that prevents the patient from making their own decisions (this can be...

  11. What is your unit's provider staffing like overnight?

    PeakRN replied to CCU BSN RN's topic in Critical Care

    We don't have ICU fellows and we don't allow residents to care for patients in any critical care areas including the ICU. Our adult ICUs have an in house intensivist overnight, PICU has their own...

  12. Working part time in nursing school

    PeakRN replied to Udmert's topic in General Nursing

    I worked two jobs during school, one as a firefighter and the other as an ED tech. They were both part time but together were essentially full time. Working is possible, but make sure you still have...

  13. Charge Nurse in 6 months?

    PeakRN replied to iheartnursing91's topic in Nursing Career

    That is not the norm by any means. We require at least one year of experience in the ED although most of our charge nurses had at least five years before starting to do charge. We don't force anyone...

  14. Magnet status...yay?

    PeakRN replied to mysonsmama's topic in General Nursing

    I've worked in a hospital that is/was magnet status and those that aren't. The magnet hospital was nothing but a big show with mediocre care. They spent plenty of their budget on advertising how...

  15. local anesthesia and drug test

    PeakRN replied to jojojojojojo's topic in Pre-Nursing Students

    Your 'caine local anesthetics are sodium channel blockers. They are neither tested for nor have any desired psychotropic effect. If someone failed a drug screen after those it is from using drugs....

  16. More proof (in case you needed it) that HCA is evil

    PeakRN replied to klone's topic in General Nursing

    Is Centura evil too? They closed down their OB practices at penrose central, penrose community, the old saint Francis, and just recently at St. Mary Corwin. Colorado has far too many hospitals and...

  17. Bare bones staffing

    PeakRN replied to smf0903's topic in Critical Care

    We don't ever have few enough patients in our ICUs/NICUs/PICU to necessitate that low of staffing, but our general policy is that we must have at least two RNs on any unit at any given time. If for...

  18. dosage question

    PeakRN replied to Nina96's topic in Pediatric

    The physician should not be ordering a medication without a weight, and with rare exception (almost exclusively critical care medications) drugs should be ordered with fixed dose rather than one where...

  19. Medication diacrepency

    PeakRN replied to SicuRN101's topic in General Nursing

    How would you have caused a discrepancy but then have resolved it by yourself? Does your hospital not require a 2nd RN/LIP/Pharmacist to reconcile discrepancies? If one of my nurses makes a...

  20. New Grad Residency

    PeakRN replied to kseniaap's topic in First Year After Licensure

    We don't hire into our ED without a BSN, but there is no way that we would hire someone who has been over a year out of nursing school without any experience (and even six months is pushing it). I'd...

  21. Which areas in hospital least physically demanding?

    PeakRN replied to TinyDancer01's topic in General Nursing

    If you're looking to be at the bedside I'd say

  22. What is the fastest respirations you've ever taken in an adult?

    PeakRN replied to Daveforsale's topic in General Nursing

    I've had a couple of older adults in the 70s, they were all in respiratory failure and all got tubed rather

  23. Baby Nurse Responsibilities

    PeakRN replied to Grayson18's topic in Ob/Gyn

    We have a specifically trained transition nurse (typically from mom/baby but there are a few from our pediatric units) who care for the infant if they are full term and low risk. Premature or high...

  24. Old nurse in pediatrics

    PeakRN replied to PPediRN's topic in Pediatric

    We have plenty of older nurses in NICU and peds, though I think that there is some gravitation for our older nurses to move towards administrative and clinic jobs. Generally speaking I don't think...

  25. Non productive overtime

    PeakRN replied to Minn_RN's topic in General Nursing

    I work mostly with what we label ourselves type Z. We keep it chill and relaxed unless it really matters and then it goes into type A mode. We do enough elective continuing education that no one can...